Table Talk opener to feature award-winning author Buchannan

February 1, 2011 10:38:00 AM

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The Friends of the Columbus-Lowndes Public Library will launch its February Table Talk series Wednesday, Feb. 2, at noon in the library meeting room with a presentation by award-winning author Minor Ferris Buchannan.

Buchannan, a Jackson-based lawyer and writer, will discuss his biography of the legendary Mississippian Holt Collier. Collier, a slave, soldier for the Confederacy, Texas cowboy and master hunter, was the man who led President Theodore Roosevelt on the famous expedition that resulted in the creation of the "Teddy bear."

Buchannan''s "Holt Collier: His Life, His Roosevelt Hunts, and the Origin of the Teddy Bear" won the Mississippi Institute of Arts and Letters award for best non-fiction in 2003 and the Mississippi Library Association''s best non-fiction award in 2004.

"We are delighted that Minor Buchannan will be here for our first February offering and tell us more about this fascinating character," said Friends'' board member Jo Shumake.

Doors open at 11:30 a.m. for those wishing to bring their lunch and socialize before the noon program. The Friends will serve iced tea.

More topics

Each Wednesday in February, the Friends will host a "casual visit with books" open to the general public.

"This month''s programs focus on important events in Mississippi and the people who were part of that history. From the Civil Rights movement in the 1960s to steamboats on the Tombigbee and the ''return'' of Gen. Ulysses S. Grant to Mississippi, we''ve lined up an impressive roster of themes and speakers," added board member Beth Imes.